The Thinking Reed

In a programmatic article entitled ‘Freedom to Remember’ the left journalist Gleb Pavlovsky sharply criticized the liberal idea of selective rehabilitation: ‘Today people are talking so much about the truth. But strange as it may seem, there is more selectiveness as well. Old names are being pulled out like rabbits from a hat. I suspect that under the banner of “the restoration of truth” publicists are preparing for a mass exhumation, but it will be selective like their own memories. In this gigantic literary morgue the remains will be laid out in rows, and the publicist-generals, orders in hand, will start marching along them. Yes, now is the time to get ready, so as not to miss the opportunity to engage in that traditional Russian “business” — turning repentance into gain…. And when the truth becomes a form of career, then again, as a classic writer predicted, “the boot will come down on the face of humanity”.’7 In Pavlovsky’s view, any selectiveness with historical facts is impermissible. By eliminating references to Stalin from historical publications, Khrushchev was paving the way for his own defeat. He himself was forgotten ‘on command’ in just the same way that Stalin had been forgotten on Khrushchev’s orders. And today the question arises: is the partial rehabilitation of Bukharin enough in order to understand the deepest roots of Stalinism? In truth, turning ‘evil renegades’ into ‘true Leninists’ with a stroke of the pen will hardly allow us to grasp the real tragedy of those people, their services and their responsibility before the nation, as well as the inseparable link between the two. Rybakov’s Children of the Arbat has appeared. Gumilev is being published in the mass-circulation magazine Ogonyok. The appearance of Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago is due. But not a word has been said about Vasili Grossman’s great novel Life and Fate, which came out in the West after the author’s death and is to this day unknown to the Soviet public.8

There is a close link between freedom and memory that is well understood by representatives of the youth movement. In 1986, when it was decided in Moscow to demolish the seventeenth-century Shcherbakov Palaces, a group of students and schoolchildren, led by Kirill Parfenov, occupied the building and held it for two months. As a result, not only were the Shcherbakov Palaces saved but they remained in the hands of the ‘invaders'. Parfenov himself appeared on the TV programme Twelfth Floor and spoke of the need to carry on the struggle to preserve the capital’s historical aspect. The official society for the protection of historical and cultural monuments (VOOPIK) itself came under critical fire. The point was that, at the end of the Brezhnev era, right-wing Russian nationalists and anti-Semites secured complete control of this society, and the defenders of the monuments had shown that the leaders of VOOPIK were more interested in combating Jews and freemasons than in preserving and restoring the heritage. The spontaneous movement for the defence of monuments which arose in the eighties found that it had to confront not only the bureaucratic and technocratic groups responsible for destroying the city’s environment but also, to a significant extent, VOOPIK as well. Despite the difficulties (perhaps even because of them), the activists of the spontaneous movement chalked up some real successes, in Moscow at least, and have become a real alternative to the official body.

The fight to preserve the historical aspect of our towns is closely associated with the movement to defend the environment generally. In 1986 the ecological lobby, which included the literary critic Academician Likhachev and the prominent writers Zalygin and Rasputin, secured the cancellation of the project to divert our northern rivers southward. This was a major event in social life, a proof of the power of the ecological movement. But the position was much worse where positive ideas and constructive proposals were concerned. The youth groups, unlike the eco-lobbyists of the older generation, were oriented towards a new conception of social development. Young architects set up a public laboratory, ‘The Town of the Future’, trying to combine ecologism with a new historical awareness in their practical work. When, in 1987, there was talk of the Government allowing free cooperatives to be established, the question also came up of alternative ways of organizing production and ‘clean’ technology. The Moscow Club and the Club for Social Initiatives (KSI), as well as some other clubs, which stepped up their activity after Gorbachev came to power, forged close links with the new social movements and informal youth groups, helping them to go over from protest to the elaboration of their own plan for society.